Course

Snow and Ice Crack Awareness

DOWNLOAD SYLLABUS

SCOPE

This preventative management and awareness course for all staff involved in land and shore excursions where snow/ice glide cracks, tide cracks, bergschrunds and crevasses are known hazards at specific sites. It is a general education, hazard awareness, disclosure and crowd control skills course and intended only for known site specific hazards for people working under a suitably experienced or qualified guide/staff member.

PREREQUISITES

Nil

CROSS CREDIT

Any internationally recognized qualifications that include syllabus components to the level of the Scope or higher. See Cross Credit Matrices.

SPECIAL NOTES

It is currently beyond the scope of the PTGA to train and qualify people for the skills and experience required to access these features, make judgements regarding their suitability for tourism use or to perform a complex rescue in crevassed terrain. There are a number of international qualifications that train and examine people to this level. Companies should hire personnel with suitable external qualifications.

It is implicit that different stages of the polar seasons will offer different levels of risk and therefore will require different experience levels of guides. This is understood by all PTGA members.

Organizations that train, examine and qualify people to travel/rescue in crevassed terrain include but are not limited to:US, Canada, NZ, Swiss, French Mountain Guides Associations, IFMGA Member Associations, NZOIA Level II Mountain, UK International Mountain Leader, NOLS Mountain Leader.

The PTGA differentiates between mountain/glacial terrain where the location and extent of crevasses is unknown and unknowable, and site specific tide-cracks, glide cracks, bergschrunds and crevasses which are known to exist in excursion locations in the same place from year to year and whose parameters (depth, width and structure) are understood and deemed manageable by a suitably qualified or experienced guide.

The PTGA expects that anyone whose role includes site assessment, judgement and decision making for excursions that are known to have these features should have higher levels of experience or qualifications and should carry appropriate equipment (probe, length of rope etc) and know how to use it.

Element 2 extraction does not imply someone has’ fallen’ in a crack of some sort. It is an extraction awareness for someone who may have put their leg through and are unable to extract themselves.

Course Features

Lectures2

Quizzes0

Skill levelAll levels

LanguageEnglish

Students0

AssessmentsYes

You have 10 weeks remaining for the course

SYLLABUS 0/2

Lecture1.1

How to Identify and Manage known features 30 min

Lecture1.2

How to safely extract someone from a known feature without technical equipment 30 min